Serenaded By Bernache du Canada

What was supposed to be a quiet day in the country, by an old estate lake chasing pike, was somewhat ruined by the Canada gooses making an unholy racket. Along with pheasants they are one of the few birds that make crows sound like song birds. When there's a couple of dozen of them going at it you could do with ear protectors. They did move away from near where I was fishing so it wasn't too loud later on.

 








My plan for today was to stick to one swim into which I scattered a handful of chopped up sprats and some dead maggots. A sardine was lobbed over to the bottom of the drop off near the island, eventually. While I was plumbing the depth I landed the rig exactly where I wanted it four times. It took half a dozen casts to land the sardine in the right place under the trees. I've found in the past if the bait is too far from the edge of the drop off you don't get a touch. The sprat rig started half way between me and the island just touching the bottom so the wind and natural drift in the water inched it along.

 








After a couple of hours I got my first run, on the sprat, a feisty little 68cm jack. This gave me the chance to use my newly acquired action cam to video one of those under water release shots you see so often. I had been poking the camera around the tree roots on the end of a landing net pole to see what was there, if anything. Not much as it turns out.

 








That was it for the day. I did try dropping the sprat under the near bank trees and around the dying reeds, but failed to elicit another bite. Still it was better than last time.